Learning Sciences Research

Our Vision

The Center for Learning Sciences Research at Digital Promise investigates how to improve learning opportunities for each learner’s strengths, needs, and community. We embed research across all the activities of Digital Promise and its partners, connecting the strengths of our research team with the capabilities of our broader organization and its external networks.

Our projects explore a range of educational opportunities in diverse settings, including formal, informal, rural, and urban environments. We investigate topics such as:

• Engaging PreK-12 learners in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning experiences that build on family and community strengths and attend to learner variability.
• Supporting school districts to design and systematically incorporate opportunities to teach computer science and computational thinking skills.
• Responsibly integrating media and technology into PreK-12 to support educators and enable students to engage deeply and meaningfully.
• Supporting teaching practices and continuous improvement processes in PreK-12 and institutions of higher education to improve outcomes for all students.
• Steering artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies toward their most ethical and beneficial uses, while identifying and managing risks.

Our Approach

We investigate learning in authentic educational settings and at scale, focusing both on the needs of individual learners and on how teachers, resources, and systems can enable learning. In our investigations, we bring together traditional qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research skills with modern data science approaches.

Co-design is essential to our work. Our research and development work includes partnerships with students, families, teachers, and developers to ensure innovations designed are meaningful, feasible, and sustainable in the communities we serve. We develop research-based innovations that address local challenges and can be expanded to support learners across the country.

We collaborate with various partners, including researchers within and outside of Digital Promise, practitioners, developers, and designers, to translate research into action—making it count.

Stay Connected

We invite you to learn more about our research by subscribing to the Learning Sciences Connections newsletter. Check out our job board for the latest opportunities to join our team.